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Editorial –
Bush/Cheney Gang Set To Move
To Lucrative Iran Neighborhoods
When reviewing the various recent statements of President George Bush and
Vice President Richard Cheney, it is hard not to feel that one has slipped
through the ‘looking glass,’ or perhaps down the Mad Hatter’s rabbit hole,
hoping to find Alice and bring her home safely to Kansas from the created war in
Iraq while avoiding a second front in Iran.
It is a long standing tradition for presidents to use their Veep’s to press
forward a more aggressive and blunt view of their own policies. In this case, of
course, it is hard to imagine that much persuasion was required, or even that
the roles are not reversed, since Dick Cheney has repeatedly shown a hard and
cynical face to Americans and to the world at large. He is a man dedicated to
war, but he is also a man who made certain he never faced war himself.
Recently Cheney, with typical arrogance, told a CNN interviewer that the Bush
Administration has achieved "enormous success" in Iraq. Perhaps this might be so
if one is proud of the billions of taxpayer dollars moved from the national
treasury to the pockets of private contractors like Halliburton. But now, as the
Bush/Cheney gang of neo-conservatives is finally challenged, even chased down,
by Democratic cops sworn in by the electorate, it clearly looks like the last
defiant plan of the most arrogant and isolated presidency the American republic
has ever endured may well encompass an attack upon Iran.
The rhetorical ‘run-up’ to the end result is already well underway, and like
the mirror that the nation slipped through when Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney began
talking about the grave terrorist dangers of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and his
"Weapons of Mass Destruction," the echo is precisely the same.
Here are a few of their recent remarks as they strive to lead the nation
further down the Mad Hatter’s tunnel for the benefit of their gang:
- "If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our
troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly." *
- "We are doing what we can to try to resolve issues such as the nuclear
question diplomatically through the United Nations, but we’ve also made it clear
that we haven’t taken any options off the table." **
- The deployment in January of the second U.S. aircraft-carrier task
force in The Persian Gulf, Mr. Cheney, explained, "delivered a ‘strong signal’ of the
United States’ commitment to confront Iran’s growing influence in the region."
***
When the Bush/Cheney gang captured the White House, thanks to powerful
patrons William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O’Connor
and Anthony Kennedy, the gang wasted no time in starting to ransack and loot the
nation’s treasures, from the national parks and public reserves to the treasury
itself, and everything in between. In the very first year the Bush/Cheney gang
turned a budget surplus of nearly $130 billion, left by the outgoing Clinton
Administration, into a deficit of $158 billion. This means that they disposed of
$288 billion dollars in that short period of time, yet no one can honestly say
that this great dispersal of tax dollars did anything to help the nation or
average Americans. Wall Street benefited, of course, as did the top 1% of the
nation’s wealthiest families, and defense contractors or all stripes. Overall,
the national debt during the Bush/Cheney years has increased some 55%.
But in 2001, even with their overweening, self-assured arrogance, Bush and
Cheney and their belligerent neo-conservative, pseudo-intellectual allies and
underlings, were facing a nation in which much more than half the electorate
resented and resisted them, as it had from the beginning when they lost the
popular election by at least half a million votes but won a 5-4 majority on the
Supreme Court.
Then came the horrors of September 11, 2001. This gave the gang a chance to
move on, first to the dusty, rocky and barren landscape of Afghanistan, and then
to the plush, rich fields of Iraq, with its oil and historical treasures.
Suddenly, somehow, the principal threat wasn’t Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated
the murderous attacks of 9/11, but rather Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Facts were
twisted and lies were told straight-faced to justify yet another violation of
American values by instigating a pre-emptive war, supposedly to disarm a
terrorist supporter who was secretly stockpiling ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction.’
Of course, in the end – after the invasion and occupation – it became clear
WMD’s didn’t exist in Iraq, and that in fact the dictatorship was unfriendly to
terrorists, not because of any distaste for such murderers or due to any
particular principles, but for the practical reason that having such
revolutionary killers in the country might have destabilized the Hussein regime.
So now Iraq has been looted and left in chaos, and finally the Democratic
cops are hot on the heels of the Bush/Cheney gang, therefore true to form the
neo-con crew and their leaders are looking to move on, and Iran is clearly in
their sights. After all, the Dem cops have already taken the major penalty
Bush/Cheney might face – impeachment – off the judicial table, so the gang is
free to take the nearly two years remaining on its lease of the White House and
push outward toward Iran, staying one step ahead of the cops.
It seems clear that if Alice is going to be rescued from the neo-con
Wonderland, the Democratic cops are going to have to be tougher than they so far
seem to be; trying to find a compromise middle-ground with radical outlaws is a
doomed policy. The Bush/Cheney gang should not be allowed to escape again,
therefore it may well be necessary to reinstate the impeachment process, if for
no other reason than that it will give the Democratic cops the ability to
hamstring the gang while simultaneously unraveling its nefarious history for all
to see. Justice would be served, and Alice could step out of the storm cellar
into clearing skies.
February, 2007
* (Bush in an NPR interview in January).
** (Cheney to Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post, in a late
January interview).
*** (Cheney to Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post, in a late
January interview).
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